Region

DUBAI — Poet Simin Behbahani, a champion of women's rights and free speech whose lyrical verse captured the hopes and disappointments of Iranians since the 1979 revolution, died on Tuesday at the age of 87, official media reported.

Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, she earned the unofficial title of the "Lioness of Iran" for what admirers saw as her courage in the face of official censorship.

After nearly two weeks in the Tehran Pars hospital, she died of heart and respiratory complications, according to state news agency IRNA. She was nearly blind towards the end of her life.

"Until now, I've said what I've had to say, I've always said I'm against death, I'm against killing and I'm against imprisonment," she told the BBC's Persian service in 2012.

She voiced strong opposition to the practice of stoning, a rarely used form of capital punishment. Under Islamic law in force in Iran since the revolution, adultery may be punished by death by stoning, while crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are all punishable by hanging.

Behbahani added her voice to those of the demonstrators who rushed into the streets after a disputed presidential election in June 2009 to protest against alleged ballot rigging, by writing the poem "Stop Throwing My Country To The Wind".

She encapsulated the hopeful and later deflated moods of contemporary Iran after the revolution, using a 1,100-year lyrical form of poetry known as the ghazal.

"It's an amazing index of those yearnings, and aspirations and disappointments following the revolution," Dr. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, a friend of the poet and director of the Roshan Centre for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland, said of her work.

On one occasion in the late 1990s, she was to speak at a poetry session, but security forces took away her microphone, turned off the lights and made noises in order to silence her.

"That didn't deter her, she just stood there reading her poetry out loud without a microphone while her supporters protected her," remembered Karimi Hakkak.

At 82, on March 2010, her passport was confiscated as she tried to board a plane to Paris for a poetry reading. Security forces questioned her and ultimately let her go, but she was unable to attend the conference.

Despite the difficulties of living in Iran, she received her inspiration from her homeland and chose not to emigrate.

"She loved Iran and despite the many opportunities she had to go live abroad, she stayed," said a friend and editor of a compilation of her poems, Ali Dehbashi, from Tehran.

"She was tied to the land and her biggest fear was that she would die while abroad."

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia on Tuesday opened new courts focusing on family disputes, the first of a series of specialised tribunals aimed at making the kingdom's legal system faster, more transparent and predictable.

Changes to the legal system are seen by analysts as an important step in wider social and economic reforms aimed at reconciling Saudi Arabia's ultra-conservative traditions with the demands of a young population and modern economy.

The introduction of specialised courts is one of the most radical changes to a legal system in which judges use their own interpretation of Islamic texts to rule on cases that range from complex commercial disputes to murder.

The new specialised family courts in Riyadh, Mecca, Jeddah, Medina and Dammam, will be staffed by judges who have received extra training in cases involving divorce, alimony and child custody, local media reported on Tuesday.

Dedicated commercial courts will be opened within four months and courts to review labour and immigration disputes, and courts specialising in criminal cases will be opened after that.

The new courts are the centrepiece of sweeping judicial reforms in Saudi Arabia that were announced by King Abdullah in 2007 but have faced opposition from conservatives who want legal matters to remain under the exclusive control of the clergy.

"The ability to do business depends on rule of law and predictability and conformity with international norms. The Saudis have made a step forward in that and hopefully it will lead to better protection of commercial interests and human rights," said Robert Jordan, a former US ambassador to Riyadh who is now a partner at law firm Baker Botts in Abu Dhabi.

The Saudi system of Sharia, Islamic law, is not codified and has no system of precedent. Judges have extensive powers to pass verdicts and impose sentences according to their personal interpretation of Muslim texts.

Activists say the creaking judicial system means cases can take years to go through courts, verdicts are highly unpredictable, sentencing can appear arbitrary and defendents are sometimes deprived of legal representation.

Four men were executed on Monday for possession of hashish, and another was executed for murder on Tuesday, taking to 18 the number of people Saudi Arabia has put to death in two weeks, prompting alarm from human rights groups.

While most commercial cases are now handled through arbitration and business tribunals, foreign investors and local businesses have said in the past they want a stronger legal framework for settling disputes.

In an effort to speed up the legal system, Saudi Arabia is also introducing judicial training centres and has approved the appointment of thousands of new judges.

Some conservative clerics, judges and bureaucrats in the justice ministry have opposed the reforms which they see as encroaching on an Islamic legal system that should be the sole province of the clergy and independent of the government.

Early last year, King Abdullah appointed Justice Minister Mohammed Al Issa, seen as a reformer, to also head of the supreme judicial council, giving him more power over the appointment and performance of judges, a move seen as aimed at countering resistance to the reforms.

JERUSALEM –– Israel on Tuesday ordered the military to respond after three rockets from Gaza allegedly struck the south as the two sides were observing a 24-hour truce, an Israeli official said.

Speaking to AFP, the official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "ordered the IDF to attack terror targets in Gaza" in response to the fire, which according to the Israeli official saw three rockets hit near the southern city of Beersheva that is home to some 200,000 people.

GAZA CITY — The Gaza death toll rose above 2,000 Monday as the clock ticked towards a midnight deadline and negotiators in Cairo strove to forge a decisive end to weeks of bloodshed.

As millions in and around Gaza enjoyed an eighth day of calm brought on by two back-to-back truces, tensions were once again on the rise ahead of a new deadline ending a five-day ceasefire which expires at 2100 GMT.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel will hit back hard if Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza resume.

“We are ready for all scenarios... the army is ready to respond with force if the firing [of rockets] resumes,” he said in a meeting with Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon.

There is little sign of any workable consensus emerging from ongoing talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Cairo.

The warring parties have just hours left to either reach an agreement, accept a further extension or risk a resumption of the fighting which has wreaked destruction across the densely populated Mediterranean coastal enclave.

The aim is to broker a long-term arrangement to halt more than a month of bloody fighting which erupted on July 8, although both sides have largely lowered their guns since August 4 thanks to a series of temporary truces.

Ahead of the deadline, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was travelling to Doha for talks with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Mishaal and the Qatari emir.

Qatar is a key backer of Hamas, the de facto ruler of Gaza.

As diplomatic efforts intensified, Gaza’s health ministry said the death toll from the fighting rose above 2,000 as more people died of their wounds.

The figures showed 2,016 people had been killed and 10,196 wounded.

Among the dead were 541 children, 250 women and 95 elderly men.

Separately, the Israeli army confirmed that five of its 64 dead soldiers were killed by “friendly fire”.

‘No positive results’ 

Despite concern over the looming deadline, the streets of Gaza City were bustling with women and children shopping for food as men sat outside in the shade.

With the negotiations in their final stretch, meetings at the Egyptian intelligence headquarters resumed at 1200 GMT, but there was little indication that either side was willing to back down on its demands.

“The fifth day of the ceasefire and the negotiations between the resistance and the Zionist enemy ends today,” Hamas’ exiled deputy leader Musa Abu Marzouk wrote on Facebook shortly before the talks began.

“No positive results until now. Everything will be decided on the ground.”

Netanyahu has said Israel would only accept an agreement which contained “a clear answer” to its security needs, while Hamas has insisted there will be no deal without an end to Israel’s eight-year blockade on Gaza.

Following talks with Meshaal in Doha, Abbas will travel to Cairo later in the week to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, a Palestinian official told AFP.

In Israel, in the absence of concrete information emerging from the talks, most commentators were pessimistic about an agreement by midnight, saying the gaps are simply too big.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, a hardline member of the Security Cabinet, said Israel should “immediately” abandon its attempt to talk, albeit indirectly, with Hamas.

“We have to stop the negotiations... and take our fate into our own hands, based on very simple parameters: humanitarian aid ‘yes’, terror ‘no’,” he told army radio.

“We do not conduct negotiations, not even indirectly, with people who use terror against us directly.”

Unilateral easing 

In an indication Israel was shifting its thinking away from a negotiated truce agreement, it began implementing a series of unilateral measures to ease conditions in Gaza.

On Sunday, Israel said it had lifted a total ban on fishing which had been in place since July 8, allowing boats to go out to sea for up to three nautical miles.

Down at the fishing port, a few fishermen could be seen taking their boats out for an early catch, although they kept close to shore, well within the new limit, an AFP correspondent said.

The talks are centred on an Egyptian proposal for a lasting ceasefire, which postpones discussions on the thorniest issues, such as Hamas demands for a seaport and airport in Gaza, for another month.

Negotiations on exchanging the remains of two Israeli soldiers for the release of Palestinian prisoners would also be delayed for a month.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency confirmed that between May and August it had arrested 93 Hamas activists in the West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem, 46 of whom were interrogated by the agency.

It also said it confiscated 600,000 shekels ($170,000/128,000 euros) from the Islamist movement’s coffers, along with 24 rifles, six pistols, seven rocket launchers and a lot of ammunition.

CAIRO — Air strikes launched by an unknown party targeting Islamist-led militias in Libya's capital killed six people Monday, authorities said, as the interim government vowed to investigate the strikes amid raging street battles.

The confusion over who launched the two fighter jets shows the chaos still engulfing Libya after the 2011 civil war that toppled down longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi.

In a statement, the government demanded the chief of staff and military intelligence to investigate the pre-dawn strikes Monday morning targeting positions of militias originally from the coastal city of Misrata and its Islamist allies.

The strikes, under the cover of darkness, sparked fears that a foreign country like Italy carried out the attack, as the Libyan military does not have aircraft that can fly at night, according to a former colonel in the Libyan air force. 

Libya’s newly elected parliament recently asked the United Nations to protect its civilians and stop the fighting. Italy’s ambassador to Libya even went on local television to say his country was not involved.

Ahmed Hadiya, the spokesman for Libya Shield, an umbrella group for militias, suggested that the warplanes took off from the Wittiya air base west of Tripoli and targeted a base taken over by his militias recently. He did not provide more details.

A militiaman from the coastal city of Misrata said the jets belong to forces allied to renegade Gen. Khalifa Hifter. The militiaman spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to talk to journalists.

The violence in Libya is rooted to the empowerment of militias after successive transitional governments depended on them to maintain order in the absence of a strong police force or a unified military. It also came as part of a backlash by Islamist factions after losing their power in parliament following June elections and in the face of a campaign by Hifter against extremist Islamic militias in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city.

In Tripoli, fighting since June concentrated around its international airport, controlled since 2011 by militias affiliated to the mountain town of Zintan. Its opponents, a mixture of Mistara militias and Islamists, launched a surprise attack on the airport aiming to drive them out.

The fighting has destroyed the airport and seen rockets fall on residential areas, sparking fears of wider chaos and prompting diplomats, foreign nationals and Libyans to flee. Egypt on Monday cancelled all flights to Libya, saying Libyan authorities had closed the country’s airspace.

BAGHDAD — Kurdish forces said they recaptured Iraq’s biggest dam from Islamist militants on Monday, as the United States launched air strikes to secure what has become a vital strategic objective in fighting that threatens to break up the country.

An employee at the site, however, said Islamic State fighters still held the Mosul Dam, giving them control over power and water supplies and where any breach of the vulnerable structure would threaten thousands of lives.

US fighter, bomber and drone aircraft took part in the strikes on Islamic State (IS) positions near the dam, the Pentagon said. The strikes damaged or destroyed six armed vehicles and a light armoured vehicle.

IS militants were said to have killed dozens of Kurdish fighters and captured 170 of them, according to a Twitter site that supports the group.

The Islamists’ seizure of the Mosul hydroelectric dam in northern Iraq earlier this month marked a stunning setback for Baghdad’s Shiite-led authorities and raised fears the militants could cut electricity and water, or even blow the shaky structure, causing huge loss of life and damage down the Tigris River valley.

In Washington, a senior administration official said: “The failure of the Mosul Dam could threaten the lives of large numbers of civilians, threaten US personnel and facilities — including the US Embassy in Baghdad — and prevent the Iraqi government from providing critical services to the Iraqi populace.”

Iraqi officials hailed what they said was a strategic victory in regaining control of the dam, and announced that the next objective would be to win back Mosul itself, the biggest city in northern Iraq which lies 40km downstream.

Hostage

However, any lingering threat to the dam from IS fighters would be like a gun to the city’s head, holding it hostage.

Hoshiyar Zebari, a top Kurdish official, said Iraqi Kurd forces had captured the dam — blighted by structural problems since it was built by West German engineers for Saddam Hussein in the 1980s — with help from US air strikes nearby in a difficult operation.

“Taking the dam took longer than expected because Islamic State had planted land mines,” he told Reuters.

Baghdad officials vowed to turn the tide against IS, whose campaign to create a regional caliphate has threatened to tear Iraq apart.

“The new tactic of launching a quick attack shrouded by secrecy proved successful and we are determined to keep following the new assault tactics with help of intelligence provided by Americans,” Sabah Nouri, a spokesman for Iraq’s counter-terrorism unit, told Reuters.

“The next stop will be Mosul.”

An employee at the dam, however, contested the government’s version of events. “Islamic State fighters are still in full control over the dam’s facilities and most of them are taking shelter near the sensitive places of the dam to avoid air strikes,” the employee told Reuters.

The employee gave no further details. However, engineers have repeatedly expressed concern about the state of the 3.5 km-wide dam since Saddam was overthrown in 2003.

A 2006 US Army Corps of Engineers report obtained by the Washington Post said the dam, which blocks the Tigris and holds 12 billion cubic metres of water, could flood two cities killing tens of thousands of people if were destroyed or collapsed. The report described it as “the most dangerous dam in the world”.

A wall of water could surge as far as Baghdad, 400km away.

At the time, Iraqi officials described these warnings as alarmist and said measures were being taken to shore up the dam that has been weakened by cavities caused by soil being washed out. These holes need to be constantly refilled but it is unclear whether this work has continued under the militants.

Kurds willing to talk

Zebari said officials from his community would join talks on forming a new, inclusive administration considered vital for combating the Sunni Muslim militants who have overrun much of the country.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki stepped down last week after criticism that his policies, by favouring Shiites, had encouraged some members of the Sunni minority to join the Islamic State insurgency.

Haider Al Abadi, a fellow Shiite with a less confrontational reputation, has been appointed prime minister-designate to try to form a government including leaders of Iraq’s main minorities. The aim is to form a united front to take on the IS, which is accused of brutality and extreme violence.

Last week, tribal leaders and clerics from Iraq’s Sunni heartland also offered conditional backing for a new government. One of the most influential leaders said he was willing to work with Abadi provided a new administration respected the rights of the Sunnis, who dominated Iraq under Saddam.

A role must also be found for the Baath Party, dominant under Saddam, if a political solution is to be found in Iraq, fugitive vice president Tarek Al Hashemi said, warning that US air strikes would do nothing to end the violence.

Mission creep

The United States has helped the Kurds with a series of air strikes on IS fighters — the first since it pulled out of the country in 2011 — saying it was preventing genocide in a conflict that has displaced hundreds of thousands.

A number of European Union countries have also armed the Kurds or said they would do so. However, intervention in Iraq remains a sensitive political issue after the Western invasion and a subsequent occupation frequently marked by bloodshed aroused strong public opposition.

British Prime Minister David Cameron played down the possibility of fresh “mission creep” in Iraq, telling the BBC: “Britain is not going to get involved in another war in Iraq”.

Britain has carried out aid drops and surveillance and transported military supplies to Kurdish forces.

But Defence Minister Michael Fallon said earlier that Britain’s role in Iraq had moved beyond just providing aid and expanded operations could last for months.

ISTANBUL — Former leader Saddam Hussein's Baath Party must play a role if a political solution is to be found in Iraq, fugitive vice president Tarek Al Hashemi said on Monday, warning that US air strikes would do nothing to end the violence.

The Iraqi army has been trying to push back Sunni Muslim insurgents from Islamic State and other groups opposed to the Shiite-led government in Baghdad since they launched a lightning advance two months ago.

The United States this month began its first air strikes on Iraq since pulling out all troops in 2011, to support Kurdish fighters also trying to reverse gains by the insurgents, who have overrun much of Iraq's north.

"My country is on the brink of civil war and partition," Hashemi, a Sunni sentenced to death in 2012 after an Iraqi court convicted him of running death squads, told Reuters in an interview in Istanbul.

"The United States summarises the whole dilemma into attacking [Islamic State] only. This is not going to put an end to the Iraqi issue," he said, saying Shiite militias were also guilty of acts of terrorism.

"They shouldn't concentrate on the Sunni extremists, they should take into consideration the Shia as well. They are also terrorists, they are killing, they are displacing people and they are adopting the same [Islamic State] policy and strategy."

Sunni groups including Baath Party loyalists initially rallied behind Islamic State because of a shared hatred for the Shiite-led government, but there have been growing signs of infighting and disagreement over the Al Qaeda offshoot's rejection of Iraq's borders, and severe interpretation of Islam.

Hashemi said "de-Baathification" after the US-led invasion in 2003 which toppled Saddam had caused Iraq to lose well-trained professionals it now badly needed and said it was vital they were brought into the political process.

"They're effective politically and even have armed groups on the ground, they are very active," he said of the banned former ruling party.

"There is only one way to accommodate them, to invite them to sit at the roundtable and be a partner in the [revival] of the political process... in laying down an agreeable vision for the future. They have to be a partner," he said.

‘Step in the right direction’

Hashemi, who denies running death squads while vice president, has long accused former prime minister Nouri Al Maliki of a witch-hunt against Sunni opponents.

Maliki, a Shiite, stepped down last week after criticism that his sectarian policies had encouraged some members of the Sunni minority to join the Islamic State insurgency.

Haider Al Abadi, a fellow Shiite with a less confrontational reputation, has been appointed prime minister-designate to try to form a government including leaders of Iraq's main minorities.

Hashemi welcomed Abadi's appointment as a "step in the right direction" but said it was not enough, calling on him to immediately halt military operations such as air strikes on Falluja, west of Baghdad, which he said were killing innocent Sunni civilians.

"If he wants to send positive messages to Sunni communities, why is he continuing the shelling and bombardment," Hashemi said. "He should immediately put an end to the military aggression which has been started by Nouri Al Maliki."

Hashemi called for the international community, under the auspices of the United Nations, to help oversee the revival of a political process in Iraq rather than focusing simply on the threat from Islamic State fighters, a strategy he said would not deliver long-term stability.

"[Islamic State] is just part of the dilemma. What about the Shia, what about this political process which has been kidnapped by Maliki and drifted," he said.

"After a while the United States is going to discover that they changed nothing with these air strikes," he said.

VIENNA — The UN nuclear watchdog chief said on Monday Iran had begun implementing transparency measures ahead of an August 25 deadline, as part of a long-running investigation into suspected atomic bomb research by Tehran.

Yukiya Amano, speaking at Vienna airport after talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in the Iranian capital, said he expected progress by Monday over the five steps the country agreed three months ago.

They include providing information about two issues that are part of the UN nuclear agency's inquiry into what it calls the possible military dimensions (PMD) of Iran's nuclear programme, which Tehran says is entirely peaceful.

Amano's comments suggested some increased optimism after his meetings in Iran on Sunday, but it remained unclear whether it would meet next week's target date. Diplomatic sources last month said the UN watchdog was worried about slow headway in the nuclear probe.

The long-stalled investigation is closely tied to Tehran's negotiations with six world powers aimed at ending a decade-old stand-off over its atomic activities and dispelling fears of a new Middle East war.

"The implementation of these five measures started," Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters upon his return from Tehran, without elaborating on what Iran was undertaking.

"We have started and that is important and I expect that progress will be made over the next week," said Amano, after securing what he called on Sunday a firm Iranian commitment to cooperate with the IAEA's investigation.

Iran denies its programme has any military objectives, but it has promised since Rouhani, a pragmatist, took office in mid-2013 to work with the IAEA to clarify its concerns.

Western officials say it is central for Iran to address the suspicions for the chances of a successful outcome of the parallel talks on a diplomatic solution between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia.

With major gaps remaining over the permissible future scope of Iran's uranium enrichment programme — activity which can have both civilian and military uses — the talks between Iran and the six major states were last month extended until November 24.

Detonator development

Under a phased Iran-IAEA transparency agreement reached in November — an attempt to jumpstart the investigation — Iran agreed in May to carry out the five steps by late August.

But diplomatic sources said in July that the IAEA was concerned about Iran's lack of engagement with the investigation. They said there was still time for Iran to implement the agreed measures, noting that it had occasionally waited until the last minute to make concessions in the past.

After years of what the West saw as Iranian stonewalling, Iran as a first step in May gave the IAEA information it had requested about Tehran's reasons for developing exploding bridge wire detonators. These can be used to set off an atomic explosive device but Iran says they are for civilian use.

Amano said the IAEA had received "further clarification" on this matter during the visit to Tehran, but gave no details.

The two issues in the inquiry that Iran agreed to address by late August concern alleged experiments on explosives that could be used for an atomic device and studies related to calculating nuclear explosive yields.

They were among 12 specific areas listed in an IAEA report issued in 2011 with a trove of intelligence indicating a concerted weapons programme that was halted in 2003 — when Iran came under increased international pressure. The intelligence also suggested some activities may later have resumed.

Amano made clear his view that Iran should step up its cooperation with the IAEA investigation. "Certainly, we are of the view that we need to accelerate," he said.

KUWAIT — Kuwait briefly detained a prominent Sunni Muslim cleric less than two weeks after the United States included him on a sanctions list on suspicion he was funnelling money to militants in Iraq and Syria, his lawyer said on Monday.

Shafi Al Ajmi, who was detained on Sunday on the border with Saudi Arabia while returning home from a pilgrimage, was released after four hours of questioning, his lawyer said.

"He was released without any charges," the lawyer, Mohammed Al Jumia, told Reuters. "He is now at home."

Jumia said he planned to file a lawsuit against the US Treasury to lift his client's name from its blacklist, but gave no further details.

An interior ministry spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Kuwait has been one of the biggest humanitarian donors to Syrian refugees through the United Nations, but it has also struggled to control unofficial fundraising for opposition groups in Syria by private individuals.

The government of the US-allied Gulf Arab state has stepped up its monitoring of individuals and charities suspected of collecting donations for militants linked to Al Qaeda in Syria and in Iraq.

On August 6, the United States imposed sanctions on Shafi and two other men suspected of funnelling money from Kuwait to Islamic State, the Al Qaeda splinter group that has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. Washington also said the men had helped smuggle fighters to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Last year, Kuwait banned a television show that Shafi appeared on, saying it incited hatred.

As well as calling for armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad, Shafi has called on supporters to torture and kill fighters in Syria linked to the Lebanese Shiite group Hizbollah, evidence of how the Syria conflict has aggravated Sunni-Shiite tensions across the Middle East.

Kuwaiti Information Minister Sheikh Salman Al Humoud Al Sabah said at the time that authorities would investigate how a show featuring the cleric was allowed to be broadcast on state television.

On Friday, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on six people suspected of financing Islamist militants, including two Kuwaitis, in a move aimed at weakening Islamic State and Al Qaeda's Syrian wing, Nusra Front.

One of the sanctioned Kuwaitis was identified as Hajjaj Al Ajmi, another prominent Muslim cleric who belongs to the same extended tribe as Shafi Al Ajmi's.

PARIS — Heavily armed robbers have mounted a brazen attack on the motorcade of a Saudi prince in Paris, making off with 250,000 euros in cash and stealing diplomatic papers, French police said Monday.

The spectacular robbery took place in northern Paris late on Sunday as the motorcade was making its way from a plush hotel on the Champs Elysees to an airport in Le Bourget, said police, who confirmed there were no injuries.

A gang of "between five and eight" thieves in two BMWs hijacked the first of around 10 vehicles in the convoy, driving off with the three occupants before letting them go, police said.

A police source and Le Parisien daily had said the men were armed with Kalashnikov rifles but an official later clarified to say they were carrying handguns.

The Saudis' Mercedes and one of the thieves' BMWs were later found abandoned and burned out in the village of Saint-Mesmes, to the northeast of Paris, approximately 40 kilometres from the scene of the crime.

Police found two 500-euro notes, documents in Arabic, and medication near the burntout wrecks of the two cars.

No suspects have yet been apprehended.

According to Le Parisien, the robbers made off with "sensitive" diplomatic documents.

A source close to the investigation confirmed the theft of diplomatic documents but told AFP: "For the moment, we have no details about the nature of these documents. They could be sensitive documents but they could equally well be unimportant."

The Saudi embassy in Paris put out a statement, carried by the official SPA agency in Saudi Arabia, saying that the vehicle was "hired by a Saudi citizen" and was not an embassy car.

However, the embassy said it had "helped the citizen until he left Paris".

The Saudi embassy said it was co-operating with French authorities on the matter but embassy spokespeople could not be reached for comment.

Romain Nadal, a spokesman for the French foreign ministry said only: "An investigation is under way into this unacceptable attack."

'Obviously
well-informed' 

"It's quite an unusual attack. They were obviously well-informed. It's true that it's quite a rare way of operating," one police source told AFP.

The head of a national police union, Nicolas Comte, said: "We need to find out what they were looking for, the money or the documents."

"I hope we will also have efficient cooperation with the Saudi authorities," he added.

The investigation has been turned over to the BRB special police unit in charge of armed robberies.

One source close to the investigation, who did not wish to be named, said: "If they were looking for sensitive documents, that changes the nature of the crime."

"It will no longer be an armed robbery, but something more complicated," the source added.

Initial results of the investigation have revealed that the robbers were obviously "aware of what they would find by attacking that specific car and not the others”, he added.

Frederic Lagache, from the Alliance police union, said: "We're dealing with a heavily armed and determined group of criminals."

"Once again, unfortunately, we see that these individuals had no fear of the police and were not concerned about the consequences of their actions."